Sabotaging RFK Jr's confirmation will increase vaccine hesitancy

 by Vinay Prasad

This week STAT reported that Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, is working to torpedo RFK Jr’s nomination. I have several thoughts

1. Scott Gottlieb was a poor FDA commissioner. He famously approved Lartruvo, only to have that blow up in his face. (I am happy to elaborate on this in a future post). Then, like a complete corporate sell out, he left FDA to work for Pfizer, pushing vaccine passports and other unethical compulsive tactics to increase sales. Scott represents the swamp of Washington. A man who says he wants to do good, but stays to do well.

2. Scott Gottlieb is a shrewd political force. I suspect he himself has planted this story (or at least encouraged it) so that he can position himself to be the next HHS director, when DJT fires RFK Jr (I suspect he believes that might occur)

3. Scott Gottlieb is not thinking about this correctly. If a Pfizer board member sabotages the candidacy of RFK Jr. vaccine hesitancy will increase. I explain in a recent twitter post.

4. First, vaccine hesitancy has been growing for some time. RFK Jr. is not the beginning or end of it.

5. Measles outbreaks will happen no matter what. The CDC did the most to fuel it by ignoring COVID19 safety signals, by forcing COVID vaccines on low risk populations, and by wrongly adding COVID19 vaccines to the childhood immunization schedule. The key question is: does it go higher or lower if RFK is confirmed vs. if he is not.

6. In the thread below, I argue it will be worse if he is not confirmed.

7. At this point, the best way to curb vaccine hesitancy is to approve RFK Jr, and redirect his energies to generating more data. More data will answer the key questions that remain unanswered: which childhood immunization program is optimal. The worse thing we can do is tank his nomination. Then vaccine hesitancy will explode.

https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/sabotaging-rfk-jrs-confirmation-will